Obituary: National racer and former Williams director Dave Brodie

When Dave Brodie succumbed to his long battle with aggressive blood cancer shortly before Christmas at the age of 81, British motor racing lost one of its great characters.

Commonly known as ‘The Brod’ or simply ‘Brod’, David began racing in 1963 with his own road car – a simple Austin A30 – and made his debut as a five-lap handicap on the club circuit of Silverstone. Won the first race. A couple of exclusive saloon Ford Anglias and a turner before the influence of his flatmates – Chris Irwin, Richard Attwood, Charles Lucas, Frank and Jonathan Williams – persuaded him to buy one of Lucas’s Titan Mk 3 1000 cc Formula 3 cars in 1968. Did. Trains. Although veteran American Roy Pike was a regular winner in the Titan works, Brody rarely finished in the top 10 and decided that his future lay in cars with a roof over his head.

And so the iconic ‘Run Baby Run’ Ford Escort MK1 was created, so named because the three-word slogan ran across the front of the car to let other drivers know what was behind them. The Escort’s distinctive black-canary-yellow pinstriping was copied a few years later by the John Player Special Lotus Formula 1 and Formula 3 cars, with the yellow replaced by gold.

Most of Brodie’s success in the immediate post-F3 years with the original Escort was at national level, with ‘Run Baby Run’ not recognized for the British and European saloon car championships. But by 1972, with Ford’s support, he had built an Escort RS1600, with which he had some big battles with David Matthews’ broadspeed-prepared RS1600, winning the BSCC two-litre class.

For 1973, Matthews and Broadspeed moved up a class with a Ford Capri RS2600, with Brodie staying with an Escort. In the first half of the season he enjoyed some great battles until an unfortunate day at Silverstone in July. In the BSCC race following the British Grand Prix, a battle between the two Davids occurred when a misunderstanding while lapping the Mini Cooper S on only the seventh lap resulted in a major accident. Both Matthews and Brodie suffered serious injuries and were unable to race again for over a year.

When he returned to the track in 1976, Brodie was now in a Mazda RX3 Savana, which they shared in that year’s RAC Tourist Trophy – a round of the European Touring Car Championship – and Matthews finished 10th overall. In BSCC, the Capri 3000 now dominates; Mazda couldn’t beat them, so Brody joined the Capri gang with mixed results.

By 1983 he was once again looking for something different from what other drivers were using and adopted a Mitsubishi Colt Starion Turbo, which gave Brody his best season in BSCC in 1985. After a season-long battle with the Ford Mercur (‘Sierra’) XR4 Ti of Andy Rouse, Rouse won the title, but Brody finished fourth in a multi-category series at the time. When Mitsubishi withdrew, it had no choice but to remain competitive by purchasing a Ford Sierra RS500 run by its own team: Brodie Brittain Racing, based in Brackley.

As the British Touring Car Championship transitioned to the Super Touring era in the early 1990s, Brodie explored other projects, including an entry for the 1994 Le Mans 24 Hours with a Harrier LR9 powered by a turbocharged two-litre Cosworth BDG engine. BBR, and is run by the late Hugh Chamberlain with William Hewland and Rob Wilson as co-drivers. The car stopped due to suspension failure on Saturday evening. In his later racing years, Brody continued development of his Sierra RS500 Rocketship and had fun with the Volkswagen Vento VR6.

Brodie’s immense enthusiasm for motor racing meant that he was involved in many off-track activities. As a life member of the British Racing Drivers’ Club, he was a director of the club for a full nine years, and during this time was instrumental in establishing the BRDC Rising Stars scheme.

Brodie had become a close friend of the late Frank Williams during the Pinner Road flat days, and he was a director of Williams Grand Prix Engineering Ltd for several years after Williams set up his own new team with Sir Patrick Head in 1977. , He was a trustee of the Gunnar Nilsson Cancer Treatment Charity, and for 27 years a director of the Springfield Boys Club in the East End of London.

Paying tribute to Brodie, Head told Autosport: “David Brodie was an excellent touring car driver. He was always a very positive character, a ‘bundle of energy’, and a friend to many. Initially running his father’s metal plating shop, he met many people while racing who wanted their suspension fitted ‘backdoor’.

“He had a very close friendship with Ronnie Peterson, who died tragically after a crash at Monza in 1978, and David and his then wife Kathy shared their second son, called Ronnie, who died tragically at an early age. I’m sure both of these events were shocking to Dave, and I have no doubt that they had a huge impact on him in his later life.

“When Williams Grand Prix Engineering was launched on 28 March 1977, Frank asked Dave to become a director of the company, and he provided solid guidance in the early years. He was ‘irrepressible’, and even that word barely describes his energy and approach to everything he did.

Brodie was also delighted to welcome new rising stars to the BRDC and was always ready with pearls of wisdom based on his more than 50 years in motor racing. Only in the last 12 months, as his illness progressed, did he fail to be available for BRDC Rising Stars Scouts meetings, when he would always delight everyone with hilarious stories which are now included in his monumental autobiography. Can be found. CTX500 Last Train for CockfostersA motor racing epic of 1,500 pages.

Brodie was a unique and far better racing driver than he is often given credit for. Will miss him a lot. To his wife Peggy, son Jimmy and his many friends and acquaintances in our sport, Autosport expresses its deepest condolences.